What will be the Blue Jays achilles heel of the 2015 season?

[Dick_Pole]

SP depth.

 

The rotation has two guys that should throw 200 IP each (Dickey/Buehrle), and one guy who should be able to at least stay healthy (Estrada), but then it's all young pitchers (Stroman, Hutchison, Norris, Sanchez, etc). I'm more worried about injury than I am performance, and if injuries hit, forget it. Depth is minimal at best. That's why if there is a glimmer of hope to sign Shields to a 3 year deal, then do it.

 

Young pitching sometimes works out just fine. Ask the Giants or Cardinals. Since last year I'm actually quite optimistic about the durability of the staff compared to years prior. People worry about SP depth beyond #6. The rebuttal to that is do we realistically think two of the top 4 guys are going to be out at the same time? If that happens this year, it will be because of bad luck. If it happened in years prior, that's because of bad roster management, loading the pitching staff with injury-prone arms.

 

The real weakness is infield depth, as it was last year, though some of that was addressed.

[Dick_Pole]

Didn't Reyes lose like 27 games in a row?

 

Not for the Jays, which I think was Adam's point. He could have done way worse than what he was while here.

[Jimcanuck]

Poor starting pitching performance leading to an overworked bullpen.

 

I'm not optimistic enough to expect a repeat of the SP performance and health of 2014.

[Dick_Pole]

bullpen. we'll end up like the 2014 Tigers.

 

Though I guess people won't mind that if we enter the playoffs.

 

I am going to go on record to say I don't think the BP will be nearly as bad as people think. SP depth = RP depth and we have enough experience with this team to know that mediocre starters (Cecil, Litsch, Janssen, McGowan) can turn into passable relievers at least for a limited period of time. And that there's still a large pool of free agents out there and every day that passes makes them a few dollars cheaper imo.

[TheHurl]

bullpen. we'll end up like the 2014 Tigers.

 

Though I guess people won't mind that if we enter the playoffs.

 

Yet so many are asking for what the 2014 Tigers did...go out and pay for/trade for relievers.

[CrackerJack]

funny how Buck brought up the '82 to mid-'85 Jays on PTS today when discussing how the bullpen is crucial (and wasn't settled until Henke arrived on the scene.)

[BigBounceyBlueBalls]

Losing Games they should have won!

[ElNik2013]

Going into last season, the bullpen was viewed a s strength yet it struggled. Funny how bullpens work.

[glory]

Young pitching sometimes works out just fine. Ask the Giants or Cardinals. Since last year I'm actually quite optimistic about the durability of the staff compared to years prior. People worry about SP depth beyond #6. The rebuttal to that is do we realistically think two of the top 4 guys are going to be out at the same time? If that happens this year, it will be because of bad luck. If it happened in years prior, that's because of bad roster management, loading the pitching staff with injury-prone arms.

 

The real weakness is infield depth, as it was last year, though some of that was addressed.

 

Hutchison threw 185 innings in his first full season back from Tommy John Surgery (most teams cap innings at 140-150 in those instances). Verducci seems to think Stroman and Norris are injury risks due to having an excessive increased workload from the year before, and while stuff like that needs to be taken on a case by case basis, it's still worth keeping an eye on. Maybe those guys keep pitching well, and I hope they do, but you can't bank on it. Adding a Shields type or hell just adding depth in general would have been nice for the event that you do have to deal with injuries. Last season was abnormally healthy for the Jays staff. With DIckey and Buehrle that can be expected, but the more youth you count on, the more risk is involved.

 

That's why, despite my feelings on Sanchez (he's not a starter long-term, IMO), I think the Jays should put him and Norris in AAA, Estrada as the #5, and Redmond as the long man. That way you have both Norris and Sanchez stretched out in case of need, and then the team is 7-deep with some intriguing arms in Double-A that might get promoted quickly (Boyd, Cole, etc).

[jays76]

Their main achilles will be not coughing up enough dough to acquire the proper depth to make the playoffs as we come just a few million and a few games short of the last WC spot.

[admin]

Staring pitching

Bullpen

and your choice of one or more of CF, LF, 2B.

[RealAccountant]

Depth

 

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